Perfect Photo Composition: The Guide To Really Great Results
Perfect photo composition revealed in this figurative stone sculpture in Berlin, Germany.
Structure is an important consideration underpinning composition. When it comes to creating a perfect photo composition it’s important to think about the way you structure your photos. Here’s how I go about making photos based around simple and effective rules of composition.
To create a perfect photo composition you’ll find following a deliberate process based upon fundamental concepts of composition, such as line, shape and texture, will allow you to easily achieve a really great result.
After a while, and with a good deal of practice, such considerations become intuitive and you’ll find the creation of a perfect photo composition will seem like second nature.
Before you know it you’re decisions will occur so quickly that you’re barely aware you’re making them. The selection of subject matter, best suited to really great photo compositions will also come more easily, making the easier to achieve really great results, more often.
Line and Shape Define your Subject
The above photo was made in the Mitte precinct in central Berlin. I was stumbling back to my hotel after a very hot summer’s day wandering around the city.
As my explorations included visits to several museums I didn't have a tripod with me. That made making the image difficult in the fading twilight.
I remember feeling really tired so, after several slow, deep and deliberate breaths, I was able to steady my body to be able to hold the camera perfectly still and make a very sharp picture, despite the relatively slow exposure required in the fading light.
I'm really happy with the result, which I've rendered into black and white to eliminate the cool, bluish color of twilight and emphasize the highly figurative shapes carved into the stone.
Perfect photo composition featuring a rice paddy in Bali, Indonesia.
Perfect Photo Composition: What You Define and What You Suggest
Lines and shapes are often amongst the most important elements of a perfect photo composition. Sometimes line and shape are clearly defined, as is evident in the photo of the figurative stone sculpture at the very top of this post.
Other times they’re not so obvious to the point of being little more than a suggestion. I think that kind of very subtle composition is showcased really well in this picture of a rice paddy in Bali, Indonesia.
Notice how elequently the curved lines of the rice plantings lead your eye through the image. It’s a very satistying feeling and much like the effect of looking at an image of a river or a winding road taking you through a beautiful mountain landscape.
In addition to line, this image also draws attention to texture and contrast, elements of composition that also underpin the success of the picture by helping to produce a cohesive and highly structured result.
Perfect photo composition of a stone Celtic cross surrounded by negative space.
Function Of Negative Space In A Perfect Photo Composition
It’s interesting how space can be used to suggest shape. For example, it's the tiny spaces around much of the two central figures in the photo at the very top of this post that helps them to visually project outwards from the other shapes that surround them.
Likewise, it’s the large, near white space surrounding the stone Celtic cross that serves to draw attention to the cross.
That’s because the human eye seeks information, and the emptiness emplied by the negative space, created by the largely featureless gray sky, encourages the eye to quickly find resolution by focusing upon the highly structured and intrictly detailed Celtic cross.
About To Travel?
It’s good to remember that, while the mind may be eased by the void, it will, soon enough, seek a point of interest to focus attention upon.
“Nothing isn’t nothing. It’s simply a lack of something.”
This quote could be interpreted to mean numerous things. In relation to my photo of the Celtic cross, I think it speaks to the value of another element of composition, that of negative space.
While primary space refers to the primary focal points (i.e., points of interest) within a photo, negative space refers to the areas that surround those points of interest.
The function of negative space in art can be described as follows:
To provide temporary rest for the mind in times of weariness, stress or heightened anxiety.
To lead the eye towards one or more primary focal points within the image that are often emphasized through elements of composition such as line, texture and shape.
How To Work Towards Perfect Photo Composition In Your Own Pictures
You might like to spend a few minutes looking at some of your favorite photos, from your own collection, to see if you can identify how you’ve used elements of composition such as line, shape, texture and negative space to produce really great results.
Remember, photos are not just about the subject matter (e.g., face, building, flower) depicted, they can also be studies in composition and, of course, in light.
After taking a look at Picasso’s Weeping Woman or Monet’s Sunflower paintings I think you’d agree with that statement.
